Never Judge YOUR Relationship By Other Ones AROUND You

“You think you just gonna kick me out the house like Usher did Tameka?! Hell naw negro, we got bills to add up!”

Dear TIYC readers, I have a story to tell y’all today. It’s a story from my early adult years that has stuck with me for a decade and has shaped one of my most important ideologies around relationships: Ignoring what everyone else is doing in THEIR love lives, and just focusing on my OWN. So here’s the story…

When I was 19 and in my first year of university, I decided to leave the campus and come home for a weekend to spend some time with the family, get my laundry done and eat up all THEIR food in the house like a normal university student SHOULD. One Saturday night when I was home alone with nothing to do, I got a call from my friend Rob who was trying to convince some chick he was talking to, to come over and smash. She agreed to come over, but since she didn’t know him like THAT, she made sure her older sister came along, leaving him in the unenviable position of needing a wingman to intercept her ass before she cock-blocked his entire flex. He called me to come over ASAP and keep the older sister busy so he could do his thing, and I was cool with that since running interference is the FIRST part of agreeing to the Guy Code of Male Friendship.

When I got to his house, it was clear he was overwhelmed by the older sisters persistence to question him about everything from his middle name to his social insurance number, so I decided THIS was the time for me to strike up a convo with her and get her off my dude’s case. We talked and talked for hours, while my boy unsuccessfully tried to convince the younger sister to get it in, and in that convo I had with the older sister, she did something that turned my spirit completely off to her: She actually admitted that she is EMBITTERED towards men – but has NEVER been in a serious relationship.

This was completely appalling to me, because I was right in the middle of what ended up being a four year relationship with my first love, experiencing all the hills and valleys of giving ALL your love to another individual, and I had to sit there and hear a girl DERIDE love, when the longest relationship she ever had was 6 weeks. Why was she so against love and relationships and men you ask? Because she saw what HER FRIENDS were put through in THEIR own relationships.

That was the absolute height of BULLSH*T to me, and even though I was young I left her with these words: “Your friends relationship failures and successes don’t got SH*T to do with your own life” and then I picked up my jacket and headed home, not giving a DAMN what my boy thinks because that chick frustrated the HELL out of me.

The problem is not that ONE young girl thought that at one random time in my existence – the problem is that MANY grown-ass men and women STILL think that BULLSH*T right up ’til this day.

You got folks out here talking about they DON’T want to get married because of divorce stats. You got idiots out here claiming they can’t trust ANYBODY because of the BS they see OTHER people do in THEIR relationships. And you even got jackasses who will get literally DEPRESSED seeing a celebrity couples marriage come to an end. Let me put it like this: If Obama divorced Michelle, I’m confident about 33% of Democrat voting women would immediately turn lesbian and lose ALL hope in love.

Well my point is simply this: EVERY relationship that YOU enter into is UNIQUE because of YOUR involvement. That’s the BIG difference between YOUR union and every other one around you. Just because sh*t is going to hell all around you, does NOT mean that YOUR relationship will inherently be doomed to fail. F*^K divorce stats, what happens to celebrities and what happens to your friends – they aren’t YOU. Your success at creating a loving relationship is only dependent on the work YOU put in – not the faults of others.

This Is Your Conscience

When Lincoln Anthony Blades is not writing for his controversial and critically acclaimed blog ThisIsYourConscience.com, he can be found contributing articles for Uptown Magazine. Lincoln wrote the hilarious and insightful book "You're Not A Victim, You're A Volunteer: How To Stop Letting Love Kick Your Ass". He is also a public speaker who has sat on panels all over North America and the Caribbean.